Why I think that armour will always be better than evasion for a Hardcore character

Read here for a better look at this issue.

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/89113

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Brussel_Sprout wrote:

You can get critted 3 times or more in a row with an Armour build. You CANNOT be critted more than once in a row with an evasion build.

With armor, those crits will also be way smaller however. And even with evasion, you actually can. They're just not all going to be physical. You can easily imagine 3 different things hitting you at the same time, each having its' own enthropy counter so that they all hit at the same time, and "defeat" the evasion crit check.
Another option is 1 physical crit, 2 spell crits. It is in no way shape or form impossible to take several crits in a row when using Evasion gear. It is merely unlikely, and for me the idea of having a chance of taking A LOT of unmitigated spike damage all of a sudden is much less appealing than a damage curve that is much flatter and thus easier to outheal thorugh flasks/life steal/life on hit.


As for the people talking about stacking both: First of all, you're not able to take the dodge passives in that case, losing out on yet a thing that gives evasion value, which is multiple layers of "checks". First it checks if you blocked, then dodged, then evaded, then the crit check. Take out any of these layers and it becomes much less effective in which case purely stacking armour surely seems a better idea.
Second of all some of all, if you're going to get armour, there is no sense in not stacking it. The more of it you have, the better it becomes vs big hits, which is what is gonna kill you. If you stack Evasion + Armour, you suffer from the weakness of both (Evasion needing multiple layers, armour suffering diminishing returns versus bigger hits) without really gaining anything.

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edef wrote:

As for the people talking about stacking both: First of all, you're not able to take the dodge passives in that case, losing out on yet a thing that gives evasion value, which is multiple layers of "checks". First it checks if you blocked, then dodged, then evaded, then the crit check. Take out any of these layers and it becomes much less effective in which case purely stacking armour surely seems a better idea.
Second of all some of all, if you're going to get armour, there is no sense in not stacking it. The more of it you have, the better it becomes vs big hits, which is what is gonna kill you. If you stack Evasion + Armour, you suffer from the weakness of both (Evasion needing multiple layers, armour suffering diminishing returns versus bigger hits) without really gaining anything.

I think Im right in saying even if you have say 25% DR, it never gets reduced to 0%, it just reduces a portion of it. Lets put it this way when I had my original lvl 67 evasion build it was fine 75% of the time and died very rapidly when the evade checks failed. When I respecced (after a wipe) and used both evade and armour this problem was almost entirely removed. Yes I had to use pots slightly more during a level but no longer did I feel like a big bag of blood waiting to explode the moment I failed to evade.

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RodHull wrote:

I think Im right in saying even if you have say 25% DR, it never gets reduced to 0%, it just reduces a portion of it. Lets put it this way when I had my original lvl 67 evasion build it was fine 75% of the time and died very rapidly when the evade checks failed. When I respecced (after a wipe) and used both evade and armour this problem was almost entirely removed. Yes I had to use pots slightly more during a level but no longer did I feel like a big bag of blood waiting to explode the moment I failed to evade.

All this does to me is prove that even armour + evasion is better than pure evasion. Did you try going all the way and just go pure armour, i.e. by taking Iron Reflexes?

And also remember, I'm mostly talking from a Hardcore point of view, in which even a single death means you start from scratch level-wise and probably lose your strongest items (as they are naturally what you equip to stay alive), which means that experimenting like that isn't gonna work unless you're willing to lose quite a few characters.

The crit damage won't be way smaller. They'll be smaller but still very significant. As for the spells hitting at the same time, that can happen with an armour build too. Imho there's very little difference between the two, both can be viable, evasion is a bit tougher to play practically because of stun lock. With the right build you can mitigate that somewhat too though.

Spells are completely irrelevant to this discussion, since neither evasion nor armor affect it in any way.

If you have 95% evasion, that means you will only be hit exactly one out of twenty times, every time, without fail. If you don't get one shotted that one hit, you can easily pop a flask, leech, regen, whatever. But if you have 95% armor, you will be hit every time. If a couple of those crit in a row, your armor will be reduced significantly, and most probably killing you.

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edef wrote:

All this does to me is prove that even armour + evasion is better than pure evasion. Did you try going all the way and just go pure armour, i.e. by taking Iron Reflexes?

And also remember, I'm mostly talking from a Hardcore point of view, in which even a single death means you start from scratch level-wise and probably lose your strongest items (as they are naturally what you equip to stay alive), which means that experimenting like that isn't gonna work unless you're willing to lose quite a few characters.

Im not gonna disagree with you, think you might be mistaking me for another person in this thread. I happen to think Evasion borders on being broken as a pure form of defense and always has been. As far back as 10 months ago it was hopelessly bad at being a viable for tactic for anyone who didnt want to lose most of their XP every 15 minutes when a bad pack of end game level mobs spawned.

As an evasion user (lets say ranger) if you see a pack of flicker strike mobs, accurate archers (etc) its basically game over unless you can really quickly run backward and kill them off screen before they attack you. As an armour user thats just not the case, you can (and most often will) survive such encounters.

SO yeah I sort of agree with you, still prefer armour + evasion over pure armour but If I had to pick between just evade OR armour it would be armour every time.

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tinghshi wrote:

Spells are completely irrelevant to this discussion, since neither evasion nor armor affect it in any way.

If you have 95% evasion, that means you will only be hit exactly one out of twenty times, every time, without fail. If you don't get one shotted that one hit, you can easily pop a flask, leech, regen, whatever. But if you have 95% armor, you will be hit every time. If a couple of those crit in a row, your armor will be reduced significantly, and most probably killing you.

First of all they arent completely irrelevant, they are very relevant. Armour users tend to be melee classes, like Marauders/Templars/Duelists... All these builds have significant advantages over building for evasion.

First of all their primary stat for wearing their chosen gear adds health directly. Not a chance of evade like Dex does, but pure health, the best form of defense in the game. Coupled with the fact they have much better access to % life nodes this becomes extra powerful. For an evasion based ranger (for example) to get near the health of a maruader is tough and requires massive sacrifices to their DPS and overall effectiveness. Where as an armour user gets health + damage from that stat.

Second life steal/regen is still one of the most effective and stable melee builds around, this directly benefits from being an armour wearer. Even accounting for criticals within a few seconds of an encounter an armour user will get a feel for how much damage they are receiving. It becomes easy to counteract even massive hits with regular pot use. An evasion user is just playing a lottery, eventually a hit will get through, and if it doesnt kill you it will often stunlock you/chill you/electrocute you etc etc at that point your dead. In seconds.

Third evasion functions nothing like you say it does, yes im aware of the mechanics thread, but in practical use its quite rare to be facing 1 monster except bosses basically. Once you start upping the enemy numbers armour FAR outstrips evasion in almost every way. If 5 mobs are hitting you as an evade user your going to be either getting rocked by multiple blows at once (dead) or getting hit/stunned repeatedly one after another as your entropy value decays to in relation to them.

I should clarify im talking endgame here, not before. TBH before that all forms of armour are workable.

Lastly due to your naturally low health (having to prioritise dex rather than str) you wont be equipped to deal with magic damage, and have access to less resist nodes.

Sorry but theres a reason 90% of top players, most of beta players and most builds use armour or ES as the primary defense. The only highly regarded pure evasion buils use IR thus turning it into DR, doesnt that tell you something?? Ever wondered why theres no node for turning armour into evasion?? Cause nobody would use it (and no not acrobatics thats a separate issue entirely although ironically barely anybody uses that either)

Id love to be proved wrong, but Im yet to see it. The reality of evasion in the endgame is its only good VS single targets and even then highly fragile. Also stop talking about getting 95% evasion, it more or less impossible, its tough to get above 70% let alone 95%. Where as DR can be easily boosted with 1 single shout skill that requires no skill or time to use.

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First of all they arent completely irrelevant, they are very relevant. Armour users tend to be melee classes, like Marauders/Templars/Duelists... All these builds have significant advantages over building for evasion.

First of all their primary stat for wearing their chosen gear adds health directly. Not a chance of evade like Dex does, but pure health, the best form of defense in the game. Coupled with the fact they have much better access to % life nodes this becomes extra powerful. For an evasion based ranger (for example) to get near the health of a maruader is tough and requires massive sacrifices to their DPS and overall effectiveness. Where as an armour user gets health + damage from that stat.

Second life steal/regen is still one of the most effective and stable melee builds around, this directly benefits from being an armour wearer. Even accounting for criticals within a few seconds of an encounter an armour user will get a feel for how much damage they are receiving. It becomes easy to counteract even massive hits with regular pot use. An evasion user is just playing a lottery, eventually a hit will get through, and if it doesnt kill you it will often stunlock you/chill you/electrocute you etc etc at that point your dead. In seconds.

Now you're adding a whole other factor by considering class and playstyle. If we're only comparing strictly armor and evasion as the defensive stats, those are, in fact irrelevant, since they aren't restricted to either evasion or armor alone.

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Third evasion functions nothing like you say it does, yes im aware of the mechanics thread, but in practical use its quite rare to be facing 1 monster except bosses basically. Once you start upping the enemy numbers armour FAR outstrips evasion in almost every way. If 5 mobs are hitting you as an evade user your going to be either getting rocked by multiple blows at once (dead) or getting hit/stunned repeatedly one after another as your entropy value decays to in relation to them.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure with (theoretically) 95%, you will always evade exactly one out of twenty hits, regardless of the number of enemies. The entropy counter is native to the character, not to each enemy.

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Sorry but theres a reason 90% of top players, most of beta players and most builds use armour or ES as the primary defense. The only highly regarded pure evasion buils use IR thus turning it into DR, doesnt that tell you something?? Ever wondered why theres no node for turning armour into evasion?? Cause nobody would use it (and no not acrobatics thats a separate issue entirely although ironically barely anybody uses that either)

I can assure you not a single top player goes PURE armor, as in, not IR. They either go Life, or EV + IR. Why? Because the amount of armor you can get with IR is simply ridiculous, since it applies both armor and evasion nodes, allowing it to go way beyond pure evasion or armor.

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Id love to be proved wrong, but Im yet to see it. The reality of evasion in the endgame is its only good VS single targets and even then highly fragile. Also stop talking about getting 95% evasion, it more or less impossible, its tough to get above 70% let alone 95%. Where as DR can be easily boosted with 1 single shout skill that requires no skill or time to use.

It really doesn't matter since it's for the sake of comparison. Saying 50% DR and 50% EV is no different than 95% DR and 95% EV. Endurance charges are, again, irrelevant since any character can use it regardless of their defense.

The OP is correct. When you cherry pick a damage value that fits directly into the range where armor reduces it ENOUGH to survive the 1shot attack with armor but not enough to survive it with evasion, armor is clearly better.

By the same token, given we don't have damage logs so we are almost entirely guessing damage ranges at this point (to the degree that we'd have to be sure of which is better anyway), you are equally as likely to come across mobs that won't one shot you as either armor or evasion, but will 2 shot you as either, giving evasion (considering entropy) a much higher chance of saving you than armor, which won't.

Furthermore, in the initial post, for some reason you don't consider the option of an evasion stacker using a granite flask the same as an armor stacker can. Let's take off a good 8k armor from the OP's calculation, leaving the evasion stacker using a high armor multi granite with ~12k armor. We are also calculating on 7 endurance changes apparently, ok:



Now, lets assume that said evasion stacker has 5k hp, so that 5.5k hit killed him, while the 4.5k hit did not. Let's calculate the range where armor would definitely save him from being 1shot where evasion wouldn't, and on the other end where either build would get 1 shot.



So, in the example given in the OP, the armor stacker is counting on the damage taken falling in a range between 9076 damage and 10359 damage, assuming all else is equal and the hit is actually taken, and assuming the further assumptions I have had to make in this case (so many assumptions does not make a good assessment of worth). Any point of damage lower than 9076 means that the evasion stacker would have survived the 1hit ko anyway, and has a much higher chance of surviving the 2hit (since the armor stacker has no evasion for that second hit and will surely get 1shot). Any point of damage higher than 10359 and the armor effectively does nothing, because it is reduced in effectiveness to the point where the player still gets 1shot.

How sure are you that the damage you are taking falls within that 9076-10359 damage range? Because I would not bet my life, or my character's life, on it. People like to think that armor is less rng than evasion, and technically it is - but that doesn't help unless you know all the variables. Without a very good idea of specific incoming damage ranges, you are playing the RNG game equally with armor as you are with evasion.


Of course, all of these examples are assuming you have all 7 endurance charges up and have your granite flask up, which adds yet more rng, and human, elements to the equation. If you are missing either one, the deadly damage ranges fly down, and also compress in regards to their ratio to each other (that is, the range at which armor avoids a 1shot that evasion wouldn't have avoided becomes smaller still). Out of interest sake, let's calculate worst case scenario, where each build has no granite OR charges up. I really don't know how much armor to expect an armor stacker to have at high level, but ill assume 8.5k armor, which is a high estimate I think - 25k from granite at 4k+100%=8.5k base armor. I will also drop the evader's armor to 1 - I think the comparison is grossly skewed to the favour of the armor wearer.



So even in the case of no damage reduction whatsoever, the incoming damage range for armor to save you from a 1 shot is 4999 to 5628 damage. All of the above ignores enfeeble, which would increase the expected damage ranges by 25% or so.

Given all of the above, the incoming damage delta where you would be saved by a 1shot in the damage ranges discussed is approximately 10-15%. On the other hand, if the armor does NOT save you from a 1shot where evasion would have let you die, the delta on evasion stacking saving you from a 2shot that the armor would not have saved you from is MUCH higher than 15% (assuming you are evasion stacking, of course).



TL;DR: In a purely mathematical sense, the range of incoming damage where armor will save you and evasion will not in the case of a 1 shot is around 10% to 15%, 20% at most realistically. On the other hand, the damage range where evasion will save you from a 2shot and armor will not is realistically much larger than that, assuming evasion stacking. From a practical sense, you have much more chance of intervening in the case of a 2 shot than you do in a 1 shot, obviously.

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tinghshi wrote:

If you don't get one shotted that one hit, you can easily pop a flask, leech, regen, whatever. But if you have 95% armor, you will be hit every time. If a couple of those crit in a row, your armor will be reduced significantly, and most probably killing you.

Endurance charges completely break that theory since they don't depend on incoming damage.

Furthermore, no they won't kill you. An armour user who stacks endurance charges can cap out their damage reduction even against the strongest attacks from the strongest enemies in the game.

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It really doesn't matter since it's for the sake of comparison. Saying 50% DR and 50% EV is no different than 95% DR and 95% EV. Endurance charges are, again, irrelevant since any character can use it regardless of their defense.

Evasion users do not benefit from Endurance charges to anywhere near the degree that armour users do. Endurance Charges have increasing returns when stacked with armour and one another. Someone who uses them without stackign armour and the max amount of endurance charges will get far less benefit. Endurance charges can increase your effective health upwards of fivefold, but only if you invest heavily in them. Here's a chart showing the EHP of various numbers of endurance charges on a 3,000 damage attack with various amounts of armour.



The nine charge user can reach 90% damage reduction against a 3,000 damage attack with just 27,000 armour, which is completely reachable. They would for all intents and purposes be immune to physical damage. A 3 charge user or a 5 charge user would only have a third or a fourth of the effective health, even if they had more armour. It would also be nigh impossible for them to reach the cap.